_edited by Sir Francis Burnand_
* * * * *
[Illustration: BETWEEN FRIENDS.
_Mr. Spooner, Q.C. (a Neophyte)._ "THIS IS MY BALL, I THINK?"
_Colonel Bunting (an Adept)._ "BY JOVE, THAT'S A JOLLY GOOD 'LIE'!"
_Mr. Spooner._ "REALLY, BUNTING, WE'RE VERY OLD FRIENDS, OF COURSE.
BUT I DO THINK YOU MIGHT FIND A PLEASANTER WAY OF POINTING OUT A
PERFECTLY UNINTENTIONAL MISTAKE!"]
* * * * *
"DUE SOUTH!"
Concerning the houses on the East Cliff of "P'm'th" I cannot speak
from residential experience. They appear to me to have been built with
a view to using P'm'th as a winter resort only, and are consequently
protected from the four winds of Heaven by fairly-grown firs, whose
appearance is very suggestive of Christmas festivities on a gigantic
scale, when they might be decorated with coloured lamps, flags, toys,
and bonbons, all of which could be raffled for by the children at home
for the holidays. Here in a still more sheltered spot, and standing,
as the auctioneers and estate agents say, "in its own park-like
grounds," of at least three acres and a half (more or less), is the
Hot-and-Cold-Bath Hotel, which from its having entertained several
crowned and half-crowned heads has fairly earned the right to the
style and title "Royal" as a distinguishing prefix.
The interior of this excellent hostelrie is, as far as my experience
goes, absolutely unique. It is crammed full of works of art of all
sorts, sizes, and varieties, so that the stranger within the hotel
gates may spend a happy day should it rain, as it sometimes does even
at P'm'th, in walking through the galleries, into the various rooms
(by permission of the occupiers), and if there be no catalogue (I do
not remember to have seen one), then he might do worse than make the
acquaintance of the amiable Bric-a-bracketing and Peculiarly Polite
Proprietor, Mr. WYTE WESCOTES, who, if the occasion be opportune, will
with pleasure become his _cicerone_, and show him all the treasures
of this unique establishment. Or he may entrust himself to the
other _genius loci_ of the place, represented by the acting manager
rejoicing in a foreign name not to be mastered all at once by the
sharpest British ear. To my mind, full of many early theatrical
reminiscences, it is immediately associated with the name of a Chinese
Princess in an ancient extravaganza entitled _The Willow-Pattern
Plate_, where Her Royal Highness is thus mentioned in the prologue:--
"And this is the room of his daughter KOONG-SEE,
Who's shut up, as she's found in the first scene to be,
Whence she looks on the gardens and looks on the trees,
That wibbledy wobbledy go in the breeze,
Whose verdure and shade such a paradise made
Of the house of the Mandarin HEE-SING."
All which description can be adapted to present circumstances, and be
applied to the interior and exterior of the Royal Hot-and-Cold-Bath
Hotel, Pinemouth, where the fare is excellent, and the price moderate;
and, if there are, here and there, in the three hundred and sixty-five
days some bad ones, what of that? Is there any establishment, however
perfect, which, open all the year round, is not open to cavil and also
to improvement?
_Trip to Lulworth Cove._--By new L. and S. W. line. This line, like
the stitch in time, saves nine, or it saves at least seven miles
formerly traversed in prehistoric times of quite six months ago. We
are _en route_ for Lulworth. Soothing name Lulworth! Drowsy murmur of
a Sleepy-Hollow sort drones about the name of Lulworth.
Delightful drive of five or six miles from station to Lulworth Cove.
Expect of course to be received by "The Cove" himself in person. As
the road thither is occasionally steep, stout persons are requested to
get out and walk up the hills, which they do with as good a grace as
is possible under the circumstances on a broiling September mid-day.
In our shandradan there is a modern version of Miss BIFFIN, who can't
possibly walk, but not for the physical reasons which prevented the
above-mentioned "abbreviated form" from pedestrianising; and there
is also with us the usual genial, stout, elderly dissembler, who,
affecting to be troubled with a touch of highly respectable gout,
feigns the deepest regret at being unable to descend from the car and
join the pedestrians in their delightful toil up the hard and stony
hill. At the summit we are refreshed by a gentle breeze, and between
the heights, about three miles distant, obtaining a view of the deep
blue sea, we feel invigorated.
"_Thalatta! Thalatta!_" exclaims a youth of our party, who is home
for the holidays. No one understands him except the stout man with the
gout, who smiles approvingly, and asks the lad some recondite question
concerning XENOPHON and the Anabasis, whereat the schoolboy shakes
his head, and murmurs something about "not having got quite so far as
that." No schoolboy home for the holidays ever has got as far as the
question you put to him. All our schoolboy knows has been exhausted in
that one quotation, and perhaps the stout gentleman with the touch of
gout is not sorry that the boy's knowledge of Greek is limited. It
is a venturesome thing for a man over fifty, who has not "kept up his
classics," to tackle a boy fresh from school.
We lose sight of the sea, and descend into the little sleepy fishing
village of Lulworth. An out-of-the-way place, with an excellent inn
(the name of which escapes my memory, but it is the only inn near the
bay), where there is good accommodation for man and beast. Here the
lobsters belong to precisely the same family as do those caught at
Swanage, and no higher praise can be bestowed on any lobsters, those
of Cromer, in Norfolk, included, than this. "Show me your lobster,
and I'll show you the man to eat it!" This is my sentiment down
South-West, or due North. The stout and gouty hero, who might have
failed to tackle the boy "fresh from school," now shows himself an
adept at tackling a lobster fresh from the sea. But more about Lunch,
Lobsters, and the Legend of Durdle Door "in our next."
* * * * *
GOOD NEWS FOR FIZZIONOMISTS.--To quote _The Merchant of Venice_, "_The
World_ says, and I say so too," (_i.e._ _The World_ of last week,)
that "the quality of the Champagne (the writer is speaking of Moet and
Chandon and Pommery and Greno) will be good." The crop is to be "six
times that of last year." Excellent--if only it be six times superior!
And oh! if it would only be just one-third less in price!! As the poet
(which word rhymes with "Moet") of the Champagne country sings,--
"To keep a _mens sana in corpore sano_,
Give me in plenty my Pommery Greno."
But, at all events, so far as they are professionally judging from the
face of the country about Epernay and Rheims, the Fizzionomists are
more than likely to be right. _Ainsi soit-il._
* * * * *
"DOLLARS AND SENSE."--According to all accounts, Mr. DALY has shown
his "sense" in reviving this piece (for a short run), so we hope he'll
pull in "the dollars."
* * * * *
MRS. R. WANTS TO KNOW.--"Who was the celebrated Scotchman," she asks,
"who took 'the Cameroons' to East Africa?"
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